A Lost Generation

Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars! Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the glorious trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been felled! The sound of the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! The sound of the roar of the lions, for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined! (Zechariah 11:1-3 ESV).

The cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) is a tall evergreen tree which has been prized for its high quality timber, oils and resins for thousands of years. The national emblem of Lebanon, it was famously used to build the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, as well as the ships and temples of the Egyptian pharaohs. The resin of the cedar of Lebanon was even used in mummification by the Ancient Egyptians. This conifer usually has a single, thick trunk with many horizontal, spirally arranged branches, which can be quite strong. In younger individuals, the crown of the tree is cone-shaped, but it broadens and flattens with age. The bark of the cedar of Lebanon is dark greyish-brown and becomes deeply cracked and fissured in older trees. It has been prized throughout the world for millennia. Sometimes a child says something “out of the blue,” unpredictable. The comedian Art Linkletter rode to fame on children’s spontaneity. We all laughed and learned too. Sometimes the writers of the Scriptures do this as well. To use Linkletter’s phrase in this regard, “Prophets Say the Darndest Things.” Their calling was to see and write things no one else was thinking about. In our reading today Zechariah laments the destruction of the cedars of Lebanon, their glory gone. The impact is felt everywhere. Even lions roar at the loss of thicket. It is a sad poem about a great loss. It would take a generation or more to replace the loss of these trees. Of course, he could have been speaking literally; however, I prefer to read the poem as prophetically symbolic. Tall trees are prideful leaders whose arrogance needs trimming. Their pride is tenacious and prone to overgrowth, but God lays them low. If this is the case, there is certainly some similarity to our present culture. More and more I am reminded by the things I hear and read how prideful and arrogant our society in general has become. We see our leaders as the ultimate answer to all our difficulties. We should hear the prophet speak. Zechariah saw the fall of Lebanon in his life. His culture, his way of life collapsed. It would be an entire generation before it would be rebuilt and recover. I wonder if that is the real message to our nation. I have no doubt that we must turn our eyes toward Jesus if we are to have any hope of surviving these days ahead. Who are you looking toward today?